“Tell me more about yourself.”
“This house belongs to my great aunt. Lucy and I have the back of it. Look—let me move you a few inches. No—don’t get up. There. I thought I’d get your supper ready here, instead of in the kitchen. Then you won’t have to be left alone.” She looked up at me, laughing. “I’m taking it for granted you have no other engagement.”
“Good heavens, no.”
“I’m rather apt to take things for granted. At least, Lucy is always telling me so. Well—as I was saying—fifty years ago or so, my great uncle (he’s been dead for ages) decided the house wasn’t big enough, and built on a great ugly excrescence at the back. Aunt Polly doesn’t want it, and didn’t know what to do with it, and when Lucy and I got this job, we suggested to her that we should live here, and be quite on our own. It suited Aunt Polly all right, and it suits us. So here we are. A woman comes in in the mornings and cleans for us. The rest we do for ourselves. It’s cheap, and very comfortable.”
“Do you mean to say you two girls live here all alone?”
“Yes. Why? Does that shock you?”
“It doesn’t shock me. Only—it’s a new idea to me. I didn’t think girls did.”
“Why shouldn’t they?” She kneeled up, looking at me, her face flushed from the fire. “Why should men have things all their own way? I suppose you think we poor women aren’t capable of looking after ourselves.”
“I don’t think anything like that at all.” I leaned forward in my earnestness. “I think it’s right, and wonderful. It’s only that—well, you see, I know so little about these things. I haven’t had a very usual sort of upbringing. Things are all rather new to me. I know very little of how young ladies live. Honestly, I didn’t mean to criticise, or pass an opinion. Treat me just as an absolutely ignorant fellow.”
She smiled.
“All right, I’ll acquit you. How long do you like your egg to boil—three minutes?”
“How did you guess that?”
“You look like a three-minute person.”
“How much more can you guess about me?”
“I’d much rather be told.”
“I’ll tell you anything,” I said. “Absolutely anything.”
“Be careful. I’m inquisitive.”
“Nothing you asked could be inquisitive.”
“Tell that to Lucy, and see what she’ll say.”
“I will, when I get the chance.”
“You won’t get it just yet, I’m afraid. She’s working.”
“What does she do?”
“The same as I. A professor in Trinity is writing a book, and Lucy and I do donkey work for him in the library. Oh, you needn’t be scared. It’s nothing very learned. At least, our part isn’t. He just tells us what to look up, and we look it up and copy it out for him.”
“It must be terribly interesting.”
“Some of it is. I love anything to do with books, don’t you? I’d like to write, only I don’t think I’ve the originality.”
Believe me or don’t believe me, but as she touched that sore place in my mind, my thumb gave a stab of pain. She must have seen me wince, or change colour, for she made a quick movement towards me, then checked it.
“I love books too,” I said. “Only I don’t get much chance to read, nowadays.”
“I’m going to start you with a cup of tea, before your egg’s ready.” She poured it out. “Drink that now, while I butter you some bread. You’ll have to have brown, whether you like it or not. We haven’t any white.”
“I like it better.”
“Good. Now. You’re not to talk till you’ve finished.”
And, indeed, I was surprisingly hungry. For the next five minutes, I ate and drank, saying nothing beyond how fresh the egg was, and how good the bread and butter.
“I ought to have given you two eggs. But we haven’t enough left.’’
“Good heavens,” I cried, in sudden contrition. “What am I thinking of, guzzling here like this! What about your supper?”
“That’s all right. Truly. I have mine later, with Lucy.”
“Promise?”
“Oh yes. I’m not polite, in that way. If I were, I’d have given you my egg.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said severely. “I wouldn’t have forgiven you in a hurry.” She laughed out loud.
“You look sweet when you’re severe,” she said: then flushed in earnest. “I’m sorry. Was that a forward thing to say?”
“Look,” I said, leaning over to her. “You don’t ever have to worry about what you say to me. It’s always all right, whatever it is. It’s all right, even before you say it.”
She didn’t answer directly, but continued to look at me.
“It’s funny,” she said. “I keep having to remind myself that two hours ago I hadn’t met you.”
“I know,” I cried, “I know. I feel that way too. I’ve never felt it with anyone before.” She looked at the fire, and I was afraid I had offended her. “Am I being forward now?”
“I don’t think there’s any question of forward, or not forward, when people tell each other truly what’s in their minds.” With a quick change of manner, she looked up, her eyes alight and laughing. “Do you realise we don’t even know each other’s names?”
“Mine’s Luke. Luke Mangan.”
“Luke.” She considered me thoughtfully. “Yes. It suits you.” “What is your name?”
“Dull. Everybody’s name. Mary. Mary Carmichael.”
“I like it. Mary’s a good name. And there are so many Marys one doesn’t have to think of any one particular sort of person.”
“There’s that about it, certainly.” She curled herself into a chair, tucking her legs under her with a neat, quick movement. I caught a glimpse of a pair of tiny feet. “Now then, Mr. Luke Mangan—tell me all about yourself.”
“All?”
“As much as you care to. But, as I warned you, I’m inquisitive.”
Her eyes met mine quite steadily. They were gentle and candid. I knew, with final certainty, that I could trust her to the end of the world.
“I’ll tell you anything,” I said.
And I told her everything, from the beginning. At first I was halting and clumsy: then I heard my voice strengthen, and soon, as I poured out to her the tale of my childhood, my love for Uncle John, for Ann Dunn, I found an exaltation, a freedom from my own fate. For the first time I rose above what had happened to me, and seemed to understand it. I told her about Martin, about poor Dennis, about the Doctor, about Guntey and Siff.
“That’s why I turned so faint when I got the bite,” I said, holding up my thumb. “I was frightened-”
And then, without intending it, I was telling her about Eily and the other girls, and how I’d kept away in dread of just this, and how, for that terrible instant, I thought it had come upon me as a punishment.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “A punishment for what?”
“I think you’ll see soon.”
She put out a hand impulsively, and touched my knee.
“Never mind whatever it is. The important thing is that you’re not going to be punished this time. Your thumb isn’t going to be bad. It’s been taken in time. Cauterising cleans a wound completely.”
“I’m not afraid any more,” I said. “I haven’t given it a thought, ever since we came here.”
I told her about my time at the Duigans, and about Captain Callaghan. I began to dawdle about, looking for things to tell her, and realised I was afraid to tell her about Muriel and my marriage.
“Don’t tell me anything if you’d rather not,” she said quietly, when I paused.
“I do want to tell you. Only—well—I wish I hadn’t got to tell you this next part. I want to. I’m going to. But-”
“But what?”
“It’ll make you despise me. I deserve it, I know. But I don’t want you to.”
“I shan’t despise you.”
“Well—” I took a bre
ath, and plunged into the story of Muriel. I told it honestly, to the best of my powers: and, I must say, a pretty contemptible figure I cut.
“I wouldn’t care,” I ended up, “at least, I wouldn’t care nearly so much, if our minds had anything in common. But she just isn’t interested. And so my mind has been dying, all this time. I’m turning into a cabbage, or a slug.”
“Well—we’ll stop the process.”
I grasped the arms of the chair in my excitement, making myself wince with pain.
“Do you mean that you’ll help me?”
“No one’s mind need die, unless he allows it to.”
“But you will help me?”
“If I may. I can’t do much, except be interested myself. I mean——”
I waved my hand impatiently. “It doesn’t matter how we put things to each other. We both understand. All I want to know is, that you don’t despise me too much. That you don’t want to stop knowing me, now you see what a gutless poor worm I am.”
“I don’t think you’re a gutless poor worm, Luke. I think you’ve had bad luck, and things happened to you before you knew what to do about them.”
“You’re right there.” I gazed gloomily into the fire. “But I did know in a way. Inside. I knew all the time.”
There was a silence.
“So that’s why you think you have to be punished,” she said. “For what wasn’t your fault.”
“Everyone thinks he ought to be punished,” I said. “You do.”
“I?”
“Yes. I know why you go about in the dark. It’s in case you should be blinded.”
Her eyes became very large. She looked at me almost in fear. ‘’ How did you know that? “
“I don’t know how. I just do know it. I know lots of things about you. And you know lots about me. Besides what I’ve told you, I mean.”
“Do I? Yes, I feel I do. But—one can’t be sure.”
“You can. Don’t look so worried. It’s right that you should all know about me. I want you to. It saves me trouble. And I shan’t ever be able to pretend to you, because you’d see through me at once. I like it to be this way.”
She said something I couldn’t hear, and looked down at the fire. I watched her face. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly.
The chimes of a church floated through the window. I jumped up.
“Heavens! I must go home. Muriel will throw a fit. But I’ve a good excuse. I’ll say the chemist kept me a long time.” I looked at her. “How stupid it all is.”
She picked up my coat, and held it for me.
“Do you know——” I began, as I struggled into it.
“Do I know what?”
I stood in front of her.
“I know I oughtn’t to say this,” I said doggedly. “But I’m going to.”
She said nothing, but stood looking at me thoughtfully. I plunged. “If I had met you, even for five minutes, I’d never have married Muriel. I’d have died first.”
Her head came up, as if in relief.
“That’s quite true,” she said lightly. “I’d never have let you.”
In a way, I felt disappointed that she had turned it off: in another way, relieved. She saw me down to the door, carrying the little lamp.
“I may come and see you again?” All of me was in the question.
“If you’re sure you’d like to.”
“If I’m——!”
She put a finger on my lips. “Think it over. Sleep on it. You may decide it’s wiser not. Write to me in three days’ time.”
“I don’t know the address.”
She wrote it down for me. “Don’t lose it, now, or leave it about.”
“I’ll never lose it,” I said: and I have it still.
I went home in a dream. Muriel’s solicitude over my bandaged thumb, her fussing over me and petting me, was like something happening to another man. I sat, my mind singing, too happy to look beyond the moment. A miracle had happened to me.
I went to the chemist the next day, in my dinner hour. My thumb was red and angry, but he said it was from the burn. I told him about Sally’s profession, and he was very reassuring. Next day the thumb was much better. I was not worrying, for Mary had done something to me that made all disaster seem fantastic. And all the time, in my mind or on paper, I was writing my letter to her. I must have written six or seven drafts of it. Muriel looked very unhappy. She thought I was writing another story. I told her it was a very important letter. She didn’t ask to whom, taking it for granted it was for the Department. So ignorant was she, I could have told her any fairy story about my work. She took the prevalent attitude that women were not supposed to know or understand anything that went on in offices.
In the end, I wrote a short letter only, saying I’d written the others and torn them up—I felt that it was of paramount importance to be utterly honest with Mary over everything—that I’d tried to think the whole thing over, but my mind refused to look at any possibility but the one. So, please, how soon could I come?
The answer was not long delayed.
“Dear LUKE,
“Very well. Come tomorrow evening at half past six.
“Yours,
“MARY.”
I felt disappointed at so short a letter, and cursed myself for a disloyal fool. Characteristically, she had ignored the difficulty of fixing Muriel. It was her one weakness, I discovered. She was so free from all supervision herself, and so free from jealous curiosity, that she could not bring herself to imagine the presence of it in someone else.
I made up my lie for Muriel, who swallowed it whole, giving me a momentary pang of guilt, and bore the day as best I could. I was out of work by six, and paraded up and down in the neighbourhood of the house till I heard the half hour. Then I knocked on the door in the wall. The noise was so loud that I felt it must rouse all the street. Nothing happened, so, with beating heart, I walked in and knocked on the back door. There was a pause, then a quick light step, and the door opened.
“Luke.”
“Mary.”
We were in each other’s arms. It was absolutely without premeditation, so sudden, so overwhelming, that we let go quickly, and stood away, breathless.
“I’ve the lamp here this time. You won’t need to grope your way.’’
We went upstairs, shy of each other; laughing, saying inconsequent things. She preceded me into the room, where there was a fine fire and tea all laid on the table. I exclaimed, and began to remove my coat. There was a pain in my chest. I took a long time folding my coat and laying it over the back of a chair. I dared not look at her.
Silence filled the room. Drawn by a force as strong as a command, I raised my eyes to her. Her face was pale, her eyes were enormous and had dark shadows under them. As I looked, her head went back, and her lips parted.
“Luke.”
I stumbled over to her, I took her clumsily in my arms, I kissed her lips, her hair, her eyes, sobbing and saying incoherent things. My knees were weak, I all but fell. We sat side by side on the sofa, holding each other. She recovered first, stroking my hair and comforting me. I drew her close, and buried my cheek in her breast.
“Oh, Mary. I never knew there could be such a thing.”
She stroked my forehead. Her fingers were long and cool. I went on talking, weak and shaken.
“When I’m with you, I feel that nothing can ever go wrong or be wrong. I’ve never felt like this in my life—everything’s so simple. There’s nothing to worry about or be afraid of. I could face anything, as long as I had you.”
“Well, you have me, as long as you want me.”
I sat up, and stared at her incredulously.
“Mary! Is it-?”
“Yes. It’s real. It’s happened to me too.”
“Have you been—loving me—ever since-”
She nodded. “All the time.”
I laughed exultantly, and hid my face again.
“I wrote you so many letters. I crossed out sentence
after sentence, in case you wouldn’t understand.”
“Silly.”
“I know I was. But—oh, it’s too wonderful.”
Presently she took my face between her hands, and looked at it long and closely.
“It’s extraordinary,” she said, half to herself. “I’ve known it so long. I recognise you.”
I caught her hand.
“That’s what I feel. We’ve been together always. We know all about each other. I tried to tell you that, the other night. I knew that you knew all about me. Not that you’d find it out, but that you knew it already.”
So our love began. Though it started with such recognition, we did not hurry things. We were content to let our feelings take possession of us, until our physical selves were the expression of our inward selves. Each of us had reticences, though nothing was withheld. The reticence governed taking, not giving. Not for some weeks did we become lovers in the full bodily sense, and, when we did, it was not with the feeling of taking a great and important step. It grew quietly and naturally out of our love and our caresses, and seemed a far less thing than the first kiss and the first discovery of ourselves. I do not like the modern fashion that speaks glibly of physical love, any more than I like people who are glib about their religious beliefs, and no one will have grounds to accuse me of either breach of taste. There are things in life which are private, and should be kept so. I only say as much as I do of this, because Mary gave me that inestimable blessing, a good conscience about my body. Muriel’s mixture of sanctimoniousness and violent passion had made me sick, the more so because I had learned to respond. And Muriel remained incurably prudish. She had never allowed me to see her naked. Mary healed me. She taught me the dignity and the grace of love. I never knew how deep my wounds were, till she began to heal them.
“Do you realise,” she said to me one day, when we were having tea, and had to stop because I popped a biscuit into her mouth. “Do you realise,” she went on, as soon as she could, “what people would say of us, if they knew?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Isn’t it absurd?”
“It doesn’t seem to mean much, does it? Luke—I wonder if everyone feels the same. That poor woman in the paper yesterday. I wonder if she felt bewildered, as we’d feel, when they said those things about her in the court?”
The Bay Page 30
